


Military Men - Didn't Come Home Again

by Crimson_Voltaire



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Death, Mentions of Blood, Military Procedure, Minor Violence, trigger warning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-09
Updated: 2016-11-09
Packaged: 2018-08-29 23:26:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,200
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8509690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson_Voltaire/pseuds/Crimson_Voltaire
Summary: There is weight in those age honoured words - the President and the Department of Defense regret to inform you... -Keith deals with the mental backlash of the failed Kerberos mission.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Title: Military Men - Didn't Come Home Again  
> I am trying to work on my other fic - this one just grabbed me by the collar and wouldn't let me go.
> 
> A little bit of angst for you.  
> Relationships are purposefully ambiguous - could be shippy or not. Note that wording implies that the Garrison is a military, all students mentioned are therefore 18.  
> Note: Beginning and opening sentences are taken from a video about the Patriot Guard Riders. They have nothing to do with this story, I just like the wording. 
> 
> Date of posting has little to do with Remeberance Day (Veteran's Day in the States) but considering the theme, I'd like to take a moment to honour those who have fallen and those left behind.

**Military Men - Didn't Come Home Again**

* * *

* * *

 

There is something surreal, about the moment that a military staff car pulls up to the curb of a home. The age honored tradition that sends military members to deliver the news that no family ever wants to receive.

**The President and the Department of Defense regret to inform you…**

[ _Somewhere in the distance, a grim faced TV anchorman is delivering the news as headlines scroll across the enormous flat screen dominating the western wall of the cafeteria…_ ]  
“At eight twenty one this morning, NASA lost all contact with _Charon 1_. All crewmembers are believed to be dead following an accident related to pilot error.”

 **And those words carry such life changing momentum with them…**    
\---  
There is something surreal, about the moment Keith walks into the cafeteria to see the words PILOT ERROR splashed across the screen, Shiro’s image floating along beside it.

Something surreal about the fact that the first emotion to flood him is not just disbelief but anger, bone deep true anger that scorches his nerves and sets his very being alight. It takes him by the throat and screams for the desert - wants to tug Keith out there and search, to leave this place behind and disappear into the sand and whatever is waiting out there. There is something surreal about the fact that the feeling never really fades.  
\---

"No.”

 “I’m sorry?” The professor is looking at him with such curiosity, her cold and steely eyes sinking past the walls Keith has built, managing to get beneath his skin and prick at his very soul. 

"I said no. Something’s up. Shiro doesn’t make mistakes, not like that.”  
She takes her glasses off, polishing them on a small square of cloth she keeps tucked in her breast pocket, still fixing him with that gaze.  “I understand you are upset Cadet, but there is no contesting what happened -”

 “You’re _lying_.”

 ---  
They write him up for that. And every other time he argues with anyone over what happened or did not happen on Kerberos.  
\---

 Many families will have someone come to the door after an event of this magnitude, someone sober faced with a gentle voice and gentler hand to console them. Keith gets nothing but teary faces and accusations; kids with their dreams crushed stare after him and those who envied Shiro finally getting their chance to show that mighty Shirogane couldn’t have been that great anyways.

All Keith gets are snippets from profs and the television broadcast they keep playing over and over and what little he can gather at the public “funeral” they have with three empty caskets.

 All he gets is that something is wrong, that everything is hush hush and locked up tight behind public displays of grief and two way mirrors only the military can pull off.

All he gets is a black eye and bloody knuckles when he knocks a third year's tooth out after hearing the kid drag Shiro through the mud. Keith gets written up for that too.  
\---

Nobody comes to Keith's door. He doesn’t know whether to take that as a blessing or a curse - that he doesn’t have to stand and listen to all the gory details of how Shiro supposedly died.

  He ponders, maybe that's the reason he keeps fighting - they don't have proof. The mission just disappeared. No distress signal, no messages home, no signs of a struggle. Just poof and disappeared. It doesn't add up. They have to be lying - Shiro can't be dead.

Keith will tell Iverson this later when his General glares at him from across the desk, spitting fire and brimstone and asking _why can't you just let this go_?

 [ _Why can’t you just admit the truth that whatever happened out there wasn’t Shiro’s fault - that he isn’t dead? He can't be dead, you have no proof._ ]

It's a lot easier to believe when he doesn't have someone handing him a flag and a sorrowful pat on the back.

And Keith will hold this as his mantra when it takes everything he has to remind himself that he can’t throw this away, not after he’s worked so hard to get here. Keith will clutch this idea, _that there's no proof, they're hiding something_ when it takes everything he is to keep himself from losing it over every snide remark. He will keep it close when he can no longer keep himself together because Shiro is nothing but a fading memory now, slipping into obscurity like he never actually existed.

Keith tries to do it. Really, he does. But he is only human.

They introduce the Kerberos rescue mission five months after the disappearance of _Charon 1_. Keith trashes the simulator.  
\---

“Cadet Kogane, you are hereby dishonourably discharged from the Flight Class program at Galaxy Garrison. Your studies and residence shall be terminated and you will forthwith surrender all property not belonging to yourself. You shall exit the premises by no later than 1200 hours this day, June twenty fourth, Twenty-one twenty two, and shall not return. Do you understand?” 

Keith can’t even will himself to look up into Iverson’s eyes, keeping them fixed on the floor just in front of his feet, mumbling out the words, “I don’t have anywhere to go.”

 (Those six words feel more like defeat than being kicked out every will.) 

The room is silent for a moment, and then quietly - so quietly Keith almost doesn’t catch it, Iverson mutters, “That isn’t my problem.”

(And those four words feel more like a death sentence, more like a military man coming to Keith’s door than Shiro’s supposed accident ever could be.)

   _That’s the thing about this place - if you break the mold, if you do something they don’t like, if something happens, the Garrison won’t hesitate in leaving you to the wolves_.   

(Lucky for Keith though, he’s used to being left behind.)  
Standing at the gates to Galaxy Garrison, Keith's got the anger itching under his skin, prodding him along into the red sands, to find a shack and an oddly shaped outcropping of rock and carvings that say something about a blue lion. He's got nothing but his things, Shiro's things, which he'd managed to nip from storage a beaten up old hover bike that Shiro had once shown him, but he's got the anger and the drive and that's enough for now.  
\---

_There is something surreal, about the moment that a military staff car pulls up to the curb of a home..._

 Humvees are rumbling away from the Garrison, heading towards whatever the hell it was that just landed out in the desert. Keith can hear them as they tear through the night, engines whining.   

_...The age honored tradition that sends military members to deliver the news that no family ever wants to receive._

“ **The President and the Department of Defense regret to inform you that on this day, Takashi Shirogane was killed in an accident aboard the _Charon 1_ exploration mission to Kerberos…** ”  

[Keith follows the humvees. Somewhere in the distance, someone is screaming.  “No! No please! Don’t put me under! The aliens! They’re coming - they’re looking for Voltron!”]

**And those words carry such life changing momentum with them…**

 ---  
“Shiro?”

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you! Constructive criticism is appreciated!


End file.
